Field Guides / Mindset
More revenue won't give you your weekends back. Owners say they'll take the time off once they hit the next number, and the number keeps moving. Decide what you want your life to look like first, put it in the diary now, and build the business around it. Not the other way round.
A pattern shows up again and again: an owner arrives on the back of their best year and tells me it was their worst. The money came in, and so did the stress, the late nights and the strain at home. The business and the personal life are one and the same, so an unhealthy business creates an unhealthy life.
Two things usually drive it. The first is perfectionism. Owners take work to 110% when 85% would satisfy the brief and get the client the outcome they wanted. It isn't a feature film. If it's in focus, framed well, sounds good and tells the story, the extra seasoning rarely matters to the client. There's also no such thing as a three-minute change. By the time you've opened the project, relinked, exported and uploaded, it's an hour.
The second is waiting. One member had surfing sixth on his list of priorities and a revenue goal at the top. Getting to that goal wasn't going to let him surf more. Making surfing the priority now was. Do that two or three times a week and you're a better partner, a better boss and a better provider.
The world doesn't stop when you take time off. Your view of yourself in it changes, though.
Start with the vision for your life, then design the business to fit it, rather than starting with a revenue number. Put the non-negotiables in the diary before the work goes in, and protect them the way you'd protect a client shoot.
Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?
What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.
Pick one thing you keep putting off until you hit the next number. Put it in the diary twice this week and protect it the way you'd protect a client shoot.
One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.
Questions like these come up regularly on our weekly Elite Boardroom calls. If you'd like someone to hold you to account each week, and to learn from a group of peers who run video businesses too, the Boardroom is for you.